


my v is for

by susiecarter



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DC Extended Universe
Genre: Caretaking, Developing Relationship, Extra Treat, F/F, Kissing, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Protectiveness, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: The first thing Helena does when they finally find Dinah is kill everyone else in the room.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 24
Kudos: 181
Collections: Fifth DCEU Fanworks Exchange





	my v is for

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



> I hope you'll excuse the extreme lateness of this treat, navaan—I saw h/c in your likes and this pairing in your requests, and I couldn't help myself! :D Happy DCEU-Ex. ♥
> 
> Title borrowed from Billie Eilish.

The first thing Helena does when they finally find Dinah is kill everyone else in the room.

The second thing she does is rush over to help Renee, who's swearing viciously and struggling with the thick black metal band clamped around Dinah's throat to keep her from using her scream.

Dinah can still breathe. But it's harsh, hoarse, squeezed in the back of her throat. Helena can't stand listening to it. She reaches in and pushes Renee's hands out of the way, and manages to force the fucking thing open with a crossbow bolt just as the door bangs open behind them.

Helena ducks, grabs Renee's shoulder and pulls at the same time Renee's trying to do the same thing to her. And the ten guys who just came pouring into the room go pouring back out of it again, as Dinah screams them flat—and not just into the hallway outside, but right through the wall, too.

"Okay, all right, great," Renee says, and straightens up again; touches Dinah's face, her throat, brisk and businesslike, and makes Dinah look her in the eyes so she can check Dinah's pupils. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Dinah says, and the word is scraped thin, but it comes out. She's touching her throat, grimacing a little. But she's conscious, and she's standing up, and it only takes about fifteen seconds to get her out of the rest of the restraints that were holding her to the wall.

They got what they came for. They're done. And if they happen to have left a hell of a mess behind them, well, hopefully that'll make the next guys think twice about fucking with the Birds of Prey.

Dinah's going home with Renee, obviously.

Which is good. Because Renee knows how to take care of people, how to look after them, even if she does it by complaining to their faces about what a pain it is and telling them they should've known better.

Helena doesn't know how to do that. That wasn't one of the things she'd needed to get revenge for her family, and so she hadn't learned it. And she's—she's caught on something, anyway, something that's sticking in her throat and keeping her hands clenched into fists even now that Dinah's okay; something that's going to try to get out, sooner or later, and she doesn't know what it'll be when it does. She's only ever dealt with it before by shooting people in the throat and watching them die, and everybody there was to shoot this time has been shot already.

So Dinah's going home with Renee, and Helena's going home alone, and that'll give her time to handle whatever this is and get rid of it.

"Okay, come on, I could really use a shower," Dinah says.

Helena darts a glance at her. She's looking at Helena, not Renee.

"A shower," Helena repeats, stalling for time, looking at Renee and widening her eyes, glaring pointedly.

Renee makes an innocent, uncomprehending face.

"Yeah," Dinah says, and grimaces a little. They'd only just barely started working her over; but she was straining, struggling, trying to get loose. She's moving like her muscles ache, like she knows it's only going to feel worse tomorrow. "You've got somewhere, right? You aren't, like, sleeping in a cave next to the Gotham Batman?"

Helena does have somewhere. She hasn't figured out what to do with the money they recovered from her family's accounts, after the diamond—besides equipment and stuff for the Birds, anyway. But she'd decided an apartment was a better idea than a hotel, back when she'd first gotten into town. She hadn't wanted somewhere other people had keys to, somewhere staff could walk in and out of. And she's still got it, even though it's tiny and shitty and she could probably buy the entire building now.

But if she tells Dinah that, Dinah's going to treat it like agreement. "Renee," she says instead.

"Works for me," Renee says loudly.

Which is no help at all. Helena glares at her harder.

Because that was Helena's only shot. Dinah's won the argument, now; and judging by the way her mouth quirks, she knows it.

Dinah doesn't seem to mind that Helena's apartment is tiny and shitty. It does have a shower, and at this point that might be the only standard Dinah's judging by.

Helena walks her awkwardly over to show her the bathroom, even though it's pretty obvious by virtue of being the only door in the whole place besides the front door; there isn't even a closet. Then she makes a break for it, closes said door behind her and doesn't let herself listen for the sound of the water coming on.

Clothes. Clean clothes. Dinah's going to want those next.

Dinah's a little shorter than Helena. But too big's better than too small, probably.

Helena doesn't really—buy clothes. When she got here, she grabbed a bunch of those shirts that come in packs of six or twelve in the men's section, some sweatpants, four or five pairs of jeans that were all the same size and looked exactly the same. That had pretty much covered it, she'd figured.

And if Dinah wants better than what Helena's got, then she should've gone home with Renee.

Helena opens the bathroom door far enough to drop a shirt and a pair of sweatpants inside, and then closes it again. Her timing's good: thirty more seconds, forty, and then the water shuts off.

She should walk away. Right? Or—she doesn't know. She's never done this. While she had something to do, the thing that had lodged itself in her throat, in her fists, had settled down; but now she finds herself swallowing hard, jaw tight, knuckles aching. She doesn't—she has to—

"Ow, shit," Dinah says, muffled, on the other side of the door. And then she raises her voice: "Helena?"

"Yeah," Helena makes herself say, and it comes out brusque, clipped. She reaches for the doorknob, and turns it.

Dinah looks up at the sound of the door opening, and tilts her chin. "Help me out here?"

She's got her fingertips in her hair. A cut, Helena sees, at the back of her head. Threw it back into somebody's face, maybe, and caught teeth or something. Not bad, but right at the edge of her hairline: thin skin that parts easily. And she's got a butterfly bandage to put on it, except she can't see what she's doing.

Helena bites down on the inside of her cheek, and steps into the bathroom.

She doesn't fuck it up too bad, probably. She does what Dinah tells her, and tries not to press too hard with her fingers, tries not to make anything worse: the cut at the back of the head, and then a scrape at the shoulder blade that needs to be cleaned, covered; a nick in the arm, short but pretty deep, where one of them had been gesturing at Dinah with a knife and she'd closed too fast to hit him in the face.

Helena's not good at this stuff. She's not good at making people feel better.

But apparently Dinah doesn't mind.

And she really is mostly okay. Not that Helena hadn't believed her, when she'd said so. But it's different getting to see for sure. Getting to look, and touch, and watch all of it get cleaned up and covered over a bit at a time.

She's okay. It wasn't that bad. They hadn't had time to hurt her very much.

So it doesn't make any sense that Helena still feels gripped by something, wrenched open—that it's only getting worse, every second she stands in here with Dinah in front of her, Dinah's skin under her hands.

She tries to keep a lid on it. She does. She tells herself that once they're done in here, once Dinah's asleep, she can go outside and find something to punch until her hands bleed.

She just—there hasn't been anything new in a long time. Any _one_ new. There was her mission, and her lessons, and the memory of her family. And when that was all there was, Helena had nothing to lose.

But now there's Renee; and there's Dinah. And Dinah almost got taken away again, and Helena can't fucking stand it.

It's fine. Dinah's fine. She tells herself that over and over, and it doesn't help at all.

She can tell that it's gotten away from her, that she's about to do something incredibly stupid, about two seconds before she watches her hand come up and touch Dinah's face—not even on the side where Dinah's lip is split, the side where she has some kind of excuse for it.

She swallows.

Dinah's looking at her, blinking, startled, the barest tiny frown starting to form between her eyebrows. "Helena," she says.

Helena kisses her.

Not like—she just has to. She just does it. Fast, awkward, too hard. She jerks away after, grits her teeth; her face feels hot.

"Sorry," she bites out. "Forget about it."

She turns around and leaves the bathroom. They were basically done anyway; it's fine. It doesn't matter. It's not a big—

"Helena," Dinah says.

Dinah followed her. Dinah's—got her by the elbow.

"Hey, hey, hang on. Just hang on a second, okay?"

She doesn't sound pissed. She doesn't sound annoyed. Amused, a little bit. But not bothered.

Helena manages, for a second, to look at her.

Her eyes are warm.

"Dinah," Helena says, and then doesn't know what should come after, doesn't know what she wanted to say next.

"It's fine," Dinah says. "It's fine, okay? Come on. Come on."

Helena was about to book it out of the bedroom entirely, not that that would have helped: it's doorless, half-assed open plan, straight line of sight to the main room and the tiny pathetic kitchenette crammed into one corner. That was exactly what Helena had liked about it, when she decided to rent it: she could put her bed in the corner with no windows, and from there she'd be able to shoot anybody who came in either the door or the fire escape.

Dinah caught her before she could get very far, though, and starts drawing her back toward the bed, gentle persistent pressure. She's hurt, she's tired; Helena could punch her in the head and leave. There's nothing stopping her.

She doesn't do it.

"See, I'm all beat up and stuff," Dinah murmurs, "so there's no way I'm going to let you make me sleep on the couch."

Helena has a couch. Sort of. Dinah might even actually fit on it. But she hadn't thought about it at all.

She— _really_ doesn't know how to take care of people.

The quirk of Dinah's mouth says maybe she already guessed that much, though, and maybe she doesn't mind that either.

"So come on," Dinah repeats. "Come on. It's okay."

She sits down on the edge of the bed, looking up at Helena. Helena stands there, awkward, face hot, no idea what the fuck she's supposed to be doing.

And then Dinah grins at her, tugs her down and kisses her first this time, and she doesn't do it the way Helena did: like a punch, like a crossbow bolt to the throat, just because she couldn't not. She goes slow, and she lingers, and for some reason it makes Helena think of the way she sings—the way she slides up and down the notes like it feels good, like she could do it all day.

After a minute or two, she eases away again. "So you were really worried about me, huh?" she says quietly, against Helena's cheek.

"I—wouldn't say that," Helena tells her.

Dinah tips her head back and laughs. "Well, sure, of course you wouldn't _say_ it," she says, but not like she minds that either.

She leans back, pulls Helena down with her—but just to make herself comfortable against Helena's shoulder.

"God, I feel like shit," she says into Helena's shirt, and then tries to bite down on a yawn and can't quite do it. "You have terrible timing. Rain check?"

"Fine," Helena says, and carefully doesn't move away.

She doesn't have to, after all. She's still got a hand free, she's still got her sightlines.

Dinah's okay, and she's going to sleep. And nobody's going to get to her without going through Helena first.


End file.
